It is nearly impossible to determine how the Pirates are doing at the plate from observing hitting coach Gerald Perry.

Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Pirates hitting coach Gerald Perry lives and dies with every swing and miss. Click photo for larger image. Related article Gorzelanny adds to Pirates' stable of left-handers Pirates Scouting Report Opponent: Milwaukee Brewers (17-16). Site: PNC Park. Times: 7:05 p.m. today and tomorrow, 1:35 p.m. Sunday. TV, radio: Today and Sunday on FSN Pittsburgh, all games on KDKA-AM (1020) and Pirates Radio Network. Starting matchups: RHP Kip Wells (3-3, 4.53 ERA) vs. LHP Chris Capuano (2-2, 4.04), LHP Mark Redman (1-3, 2.91) vs. RHP Victor Santos (1-2, 3.05), LHP Dave Williams (3-3, 3.79) vs. RHP Gary Glover (2-1, 5.51). Season series: Brewers, 4-1. Milwaukee swept a two-game set at PNC Park to open the season April 4-6. Three things to know about the Brewers: 1. They will not be happy to leave Miller Park, just having completed a 9-3 homestand that was their best since 1992 and propelled them into second place in the Central. 2. Carlos Lee, the team's primary offseason acquisition, is heating up. He is hitting .348 (15 for 43) in May, with three home runs and 14 RBIs. 3. Although the team has played well in general, the pitchers are giving up loads of long balls: Milwaukee's staff has given up 21 home runs in the past seven games. The Pirates' key to success: Place a tarp over the Downtown skyline, and envision they are somewhere else. The Pirates are 3-9 at PNC Park, giving them the worst home record in the National League. The intangible: Is it too early break out those wild-card standings? The Pirates and Brewers almost universally were predicted to be the Central's cellar dwellers, but here they are dueling for second place. On deck: The eight-game homestand continues with two against the Chicago Cubs Tuesday and Wednesday. -- By Dejan Kovacevic

When they reported to the ballpark in Houston 11 days ago, they were the worst-hitting team in Major League Baseball.

Perry had several players outside for early batting practice, a few others analyzing video.

Asked that day if his hitters' poor performance was weighing on him, he flatly replied, "I think about it a lot."

When the Pirates reported to San Francisco four days ago, they were less than 24 hours removed from a 16-run outburst in Phoenix.

Perry again had several players outside for early batting practice, a few others analyzing video.

Asked that day if he felt gratified that his team was leading the majors in home runs in May, he flatly replied, "It's nice."

Such is the approach of a hitting coach.

He lives and dies with every swing and miss, with every slump and streak, but he can never let his poker face slip. If he does, his players can become too overwhelmed by their failures or too comfortable with their successes.

Baseball is not terribly forgiving on either count.

"There are going to be ups and downs all year, but I can't ride those," Perry said. "I really felt like, because of the start we had, we had to be out in the cages. And we were. But I want us out there now, too, because I don't want us to lose the way we're swinging. All you're striving for as a major-league hitter is consistency."

The swing of things

The Pirates were consistently awful before a 7-3 road trip they just completed, hitting .227 with 13 home runs in 23 games. But they magically morphed into sluggers once they left town, hitting .284 with 19 home runs in 10 games.

Their 21 home runs are the most in baseball this month.

How did it happen?

There is no simple explanation, naturally, but there was a gradual progression, according to Perry and some of his players.

The driving force, Perry and the players agree, was the willingness to perform extra work.

Each day before each game, most or all of the position players were on the field for early batting practice. Some even went for the late variety. Shortstop Jack Wilson was seen after one loss at PNC Park walking straight from the field to the indoor batting cage.

"The player has to want to bust out of it," Perry said. "Our guys worked as hard as you can imagine."

Next was identifying what the hitter was doing wrong.

To achieve that, Perry would find video from a period in which the player was on a roll. He and the player would watch it on one of the team's many clubhouse laptops and, invariably, differences were discovered. Some were as minor as the slight shift in third baseman Ty Wigginton's grip. Some were major and getting worse by the day, generally born from pressing too hard.

Sometimes, it had nothing at all to do with the swing but, rather, with flawed timing.

Utilityman Rob Mackowiak was upset with having reacted too late to a meaty pitch that floated by him one night in San Francisco. The next afternoon, he took a bat to the bullpen and simply assumed his stance next to a plate while Josh Fogg threw warm-up pitches.

"Felt better right away," Mackowiak said. "Nothing matters more in hitting than seeing the pitch."

"If I see a guy pulling off the ball or not getting good cuts or not seeing pitches, I'll go through the video library back to a time when he was swinging right," Perry said. "Usually, it's something small, and you make sure to tell the player that this one little thing is all we need to get you going again."

Another element was to talk up the player, even when positives were difficult to manufacture. That meant praise for a middling ground ball that advanced a runner or even a good-looking swing on a foul ball.

"A pat on the back goes a long way," Perry said.

The most critical step, all concerned agreed, was to keep penciling the player's name onto the lineup card.

That decision is made not by Perry, of course, but by manager Lloyd McClendon.

"You've got to stick with those guys that you need, those guys with track records," McClendon said. "Gerald doesn't give up on them, and I don't give up on them. You can take all the early batting practice in the world, and it doesn't mean anything until you do it in a game."

McClendon, who once was the Pirates' hitting coach, praised Perry, who is in his third year on the job.

"Gerald's a hard worker, and he demands a lot out of these players," McClendon said. "I can tell you one thing: He's always got these guys as prepared as they can be."

Perry, 44, played 13 years in the majors and hit .265.

He laughed when asked if he ever is tempted to grab one of his players' bats and go to the box.

"No thanks," he said. "That's the tougher job, believe me."

Hit or miss

Perry's world is like that of most coaches who specialize: His performance tends to be evaluated only when his players are doing poorly.

Neither he nor McClendon takes issue with that.

"I want my players to get the credit," Perry said. "I understand how it works."

"If the players look good, you look good. If the players look bad, so do you, whether you're a hitting coach, pitching coach or manager," McClendon said. "It's still up to the players. That's something I try to get my coaches to understand through the hard times. They take it to heart. People don't realize how these guys lose sleep. Literally."

"Everybody talks bad about Gerald when we're not hitting," Mackowiak said. "It's not on him. We know it's on us as players, and you feel bad when that happens."

Things are going well for the Pirates. A long list of slumping players has been converted to an equally long list of streaking players. Wilson and Wigginton, for example, dipped in the .150 range in April but have emerged as key contributors of late.

Even center fielder Tike Redman, the one player still not producing, has made good enough contact that Perry is leaving him be.

"All I can do right now for Tike is to root for him," Perry said. "All you can do is hit 'em hard. You can't tell 'em where to go."

Judging Perry's overall work is as difficult as with any of the Pirates' coaches, if only because the quality of hitters in his tenure generally has been lower than the National League norm.

His teams' overall numbers have been up and down to date. In his first year, 2003, the Pirates' batting average improved from .244 to .267, third best in the league. Last year, they dipped to .260, 11th best.

Most troublesome to many who follow the team closely, the Pirates have shown precious little patience at the plate in Perry's tenure. Last year, they ranked last in the majors with 415 walks. This year, they rank 23rd out of the 30 teams with 95.

Although there is greater value being placed on walks and on-base percentage in the baseball community, Perry is adamant that coaching players to seek a free pass is unwise.

"I don't want my hitters to be defensive," he said. "I think you have to go out there to swing the bat. You have to have a zone and try to stay within that zone, but I don't want anybody getting into that box and thinking, 'Oh, man, I need to get a walk.' "

Before coming to the Pirates, Perry served three years as Seattle's hitting coach. In 2000, the Mariners set a team record for walks.

He stressed that he does not discourage walks, and that was evident by the unusually open delight he displayed after the Pirates patiently forced Roger Clemens to walk them five times last week in Houston. They also worked him into hitter's counts and were able to take better cuts.

Perry told his players in a meeting that he was proud of their showing.

"That was a big game for us on the trip," he said. "There are a lot of guys in our lineup who like to take their swings, but we did a great job against a great pitcher."

However many critics Perry might have, in bad times or good, it is difficult to find them in the clubhouse. The players speak of him in glowing terms.

"When we're struggling, he's out there by the cage waiting for us. When we're doing well, he's out there waiting for us," Redman said. "He wants us hitting. Every day. Every one of us. That's great to have."